


someone will come running

by trashmouthtrash



Category: IT (2017), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Blood, Gen, Hospitals, Hurt Richie Tozier, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Torture, Serious Injuries, Whipping, the losers love their idiot and they take care of him, this is so self-indulgent lmao
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-10
Updated: 2018-09-10
Packaged: 2019-07-10 13:23:35
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,480
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15950228
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/trashmouthtrash/pseuds/trashmouthtrash
Summary: someone kidnaps richie but his friends bring him home.(or: richie gets tortured and that is Not Okay with the losers)one-shot.





	someone will come running

**Author's Note:**

> for readers of my unfinished riverdale stories: I'm officially abandoning them for the foreseeable future. I feel like its better to do this than to keep promising to update and never doing it. nothing's impossible - I may pick them up again one day - but I wouldn't get your hopes up. if you'd like to write your own versions/ending let me know, or if you have ideas, but... yeah. sorry. thank you for understanding!

They find him in the sewers. After a day of persistent searching - and paranoia about running into a certain clown - they finally stumbled into the last cavern. It was dark and grimy; it reminded Ben of the Chamber of Secrets in Harry Potter. 

((the clown had faded away, it seemed like he was gone forever. But the losers had learned that many things that seem impossible are very much possible. They were no longer naive children, they would forever carry around a sense of trepidation resulting from their past trauma.))

Bill led the way, as usual. No one questioned it, they just fell into place and it felt right. Except not quite - their group was incomplete, and the imbalance was not left unnoticed. 

They were worried that they wouldn’t know the way to go, but Bill led them with confidence and soon they figured out why. It was a feeling. Something pulsing in their hearts, tugging them together, leading them toward their lost member. They could all feel it and, in a way they couldn’t explain, they knew to trust it. 

Eventually, they took the final few cautious steps into the shadowy cave. Something pushed them forward, then there was a click, like the last puzzle piece setting into place.

Richie.

He was hanging, his arms tied to a hook above his head. Richie’s head hung low - he was unconscious. The kids ran toward him, taking in his pale, thin, haggard appearance.

From afar, Richie didn’t look all too bad. For a second, they thought maybe this was it, Richie would be okay and they could all go back to normal.

As the kids got closer, however, they realized that he wasn’t just thin, he was skeletal. Not just pale, but deathly white. His legs were stained with crimson blood, and he had a ring of bruises around his neck. 

Richie was so, so far from okay.

“Richie! Wake up!” Eddie frantically tapped him on the cheek, his desperation evident in the shaky pitch of his voice. He grabbed Richie by the shoulders and shook him. 

Richie’s eyes flew open and he flinched away from Eddie’s touch before he was even fully awake. 

“No-! Don’t… No more…” Richie groaned. Finally he opened his bleary eyes, looking up at his friends warily. “Eds?”

“Yeah, Rich, I’m right here. And don’t call me that,” he said with a wry smile. Richie smiled tightly, an expression that was meant to be happy but instead conveyed unimaginable pain.

“Where are you hurt?”

Richie grimaced. “Uh, legs… back and feet, mostly…. ‘m starving.”

They were so used to Richie’s chatter, his unfailing stream of jokes regardless of the situation, that his timidity left them feeling uncomfortable. 

“Let’s get you down from there,” Ben said quickly. Bev pulled out a switchblade, slicing at the ropes digging into Richie’s wrists. Mike and Stan moved to help him stand, but Richie inhaled sharply and his knees buckled. 

“Can’t… can’t stand, my feet…”

Bev wondered how they hadn’t noticed before. Richie’s feet were raw and bloody, still actively bleeding from welts crisscrossed all over the soles. Not an inch of skin was unmarred. His ankles were much the same and there were similar marks on his thighs. He’d been whipped.

Richie was breathing heavily with his eyes squeezed shut, as if the pain would go away if he didn’t look at it. “Please,” he whimpered. Mike winced.

“How are we gonna get out of here if Richie can’t walk?” Stan murmured.

“We’ll carry him.”

“Really, Bill? There’s no way we could make it, it’s a really long way.”

“We’ll take turns. And look at him, he can’t weigh much.” Bev hissed the last part.

“We came down here to get Richie, we sure as hell aren’t leaving him here.”

Mike sat right by Richie, making sure the other boy was looking at him. “Rich, I’m gonna pick you up, okay? You wanna go on my back or in my arms?”

Richie blinked, bringing himself back to awareness. “Um… Maybe back?I don’t know...”

Mike helped Richie get situated with Richie’s arms around Mike’s neck and shoulders. 

“Let’s go.”

XXX

The walk was the longest, most excruciating experience the group had been through. Richie kept shaking and hissing when his injuries were disturbed. At least three times his stomach growled loudly enough to be embarrassing. 

Mike carried him for a while, then he went on Bill’s back. Stan even held him for a bit, but quickly got grossed out by the blood. Eddie didn’t carry him, but he grabbed his hand at some point.

As they walked further, winding through the sewer tunnels, Richie seemed to grow progressively weaker. His grip gradually loosened; he almost fell off Mike. By the time it was Bill’s turn again, Richie had taken to resting his head on the shoulder of whoever was carrying him.

Bill could feel Richie’s warm breath tickling his neck. He kept drifting in and out of consciousness; in other words, he would randomly go limp, making Bill’s job all the more difficult. But Bill, of course, was in no place to complain.

((“please let him be okay. god, or whoever, just… let him be okay.”))

Richie was barely aware, but he knew that Bill’s bony shoulder was surprisingly comfortable and that was good enough for him. His feet ached fiercely. The overall soreness and exhaustion made him nod off a few times, but… he couldn’t find it in himself to be too concerned. He was going home, that was all that mattered.

In his sleep, Richie nuzzled the crook of Bill’s neck, and Bill smiled softly.

“Look! There’s the exit!” Stan called, a smile in his voice.

Bill nudged Richie. “S-See that? We’re g-getting out.”

Richie didn’t answer.

“Rich?”

Eddie turned, and his face fell. “He really doesn’t look good, Bill.”

“I know.”

XXX

Bill was getting tired, but his bike was the only one he could put Richie on. When they finally made it out, he loaded Richie on as quickly as possible. The other boy sagged against Bill’s back immediately.

“Bill?”

“Yeah, Rich?”

“Hurts.”

“W-We’re a-almost there.”

“I can’t…” Richie hiccuped slightly. Bill softened. Richie’s head went limp on Bill’s shoulder, and Bill swore he’d never cycled so fast in his life.

XXX

The emergency room staff took one look at Richie and whisked him away. The kids sunk into chairs, physically and emotionally exhausted. Bill ended up laying down with his head in Stan’s lap, and Bev was leaning on Ben’s shoulder. 

Even the hours spent in the waiting room weren’t enough time to process what had happened.

Richie, their dorky idiot, had been kidnapped and tortured. He was lucky to be alive; the losers had almost lost one of their own.

They were finally allowed to see him. Richie was asleep and he even looked a bit better. The hospital gown made him look pitifully small, but at least he wasn’t covered in blood aymore.

Eddie grabbed his hand. The others settled in around the room, ready to wait until Richie woke up. 

Well, he did, and he did so with a bang. First, they heard a few soft whimpers and Richie started shifting around. Then he let out a heart-wrenching, blood-curdling scream and his eyes flew open as he sat bolt upright. 

“No! Stop! Get away! Please! I can’t… No!” Richie yelled feverishly. Eddie squeezed his hand, hard, and Richie flinched. Eddie refused to let go, however, and eventually grabbed Richie by the shoulders.

“Richie, it’s Eddie. You’re safe. You’re at the hospital, you’re not there anymore. I’m here, all of us are. You’re safe, Richie.” Over and over Eddie soothed him until Richie finally relaxed back into the pillows. The kids wanted to talk to him, but the episode had exhausted Richie and soon enough he was asleep again.

“Jesus.”

“That was… wow.” 

“He’s gonna need help getting through this, a lot of help. We really gotta be there for him.” Bev’s voice was quiet but firm. Richie was gonna get through this and goddammit they were gonna be there to support him.

XXX

When Richie woke up for real, it was much calmer. It started with a few finger twitches and then his eyes fluttered open. The losers were beyond relieved.

“How’re you feeling, Richie?”

“Why, I’m feeling pretty as a peach this fine mornin’, don’t you worry your pretty little head about me, I’m just-”

Bev snorted. “Cut the crap, Richie, I’m serious. We were worried.”

Richie softened. For once, he struggled for words. “I’ll be okay, I guess. I don’t know. I was really scared, you know? And… that guy really messed me up. I won’t be walking for a while.”

They fell silent. The implications of Richie’s words are daunting.

“Was I dreaming or did you guys really carry me all the way out?”

They would be okay.

XXX

**Author's Note:**

> share your thots with this thot  
> (or: a sister needs validation,,, share the kudos and comments por favor)
> 
> I feel like my writing was okay in some parts but other parts are a big oof... whoops... my last few brain cells don't feel like revising it right now


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